


no flame burns forever; you and i both know this all too well

by thefigureinthecorner



Series: and now you have to deal with the aftermath [2]
Category: The AM Archives (Podcast), The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Funerals, Gen, Post-Canon, Tags Contain Spoilers, Trans Male Character, Trans Owen Thompson | Agent Green, it's not touched on much but the hc is relevant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21541906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefigureinthecorner/pseuds/thefigureinthecorner
Summary: She has so much to say, but she doesn’t trust her voice to work beyond what’s strictly necessary and polite, beyond greetings and condolences and small-talk.This was supposed to have made things feel real.AM Archives spoilers past episode 15.
Series: and now you have to deal with the aftermath [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551634
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	no flame burns forever; you and i both know this all too well

**Author's Note:**

> Funeral fic wooo
> 
> This, along with a lot of other fics in this series, was initially part of a larger ghost Owen AU fic, but I've decided to split it up because the longfic format just wasn't working for it. I'm better cut out for short fics, I think.
> 
> Title is from Tompkins Square Park by Mumford and Sons.

The funeral is two weeks after. It’s a joint funeral for Owen and Andrea, given that neither of them have much in the way of living family members and that the non-family attendees for both of them are largely the same. There had been a bit of debate on whether any of the patients at the AM should be invited or if the funeral should be kept small and limited to friends and family, but eventually they decided the invite should be extended to include the people that the two of them helped. Cat and Cam are there, and Ira; Caleb didn’t come because empathy and funerals aren’t a great mix, but Alice is there with her parents; the multiplier that Andrea helped—  _ countless _ atypicals who all came brimming with stories about the two of them and the work they did.

Joan almost breaks down again the second she sees the crowd.

Owen’s able to have an open casket; Andrea is too, with the aid of a carefully-placed scarf. They almost look like they’re just sleeping, like any moment now they could wake up and the world would be right again. But neither of them do. The world keeps turning without them. The world keeps feeling wrong. The world keeps feeling like everything’s been muted and shifted a centimeter to the left. The uneasy, nauseous, empty, numb feeling that’s been building in Joan since Helen keeps swirling in her.

The celebrant begins his speech-- “We are gathered here today to honor the lives of Owen Archibald Thompson and of Andrea Nicol Romero,” legal names rather than code names given the occasion-- and Joan barely hears a word of it. It feels performative and emotionless coming from a man who never knew either of them, who’s only here to do his job and recite the speech they’d all helped him put together. He had been understanding and patient and kind throughout the whole ordeal, and Joan appreciated him for all his help, but he never  _ knew  _ Owen and Andrea. He never  _ could  _ know all that they did for the people around them, all the good they’d tried to do in their lives.

But for all that, she doesn’t speak at the funeral. She has so much to say, but she doesn’t trust her voice to work beyond what’s strictly necessary and polite, beyond greetings and condolences and small-talk.

This was supposed to have made things feel real. This, the funeral, having the space to mourn, seeing everyone gathered here for Owen and for Andrea, seeing them lying in their caskets and knowing they were both well and truly gone, this was supposed to make it real. It doesn’t. Joan’s head still feels like it’s full of cotton, like the world is surreal and she’s just stuck in a horrible, horrible nightmare.

It’s too goddamn sunny and cheerful out for a funeral today.

“How are you holding up?” Mark asks at the reception afterwards. He’s holding a small plate without much on it; Joan can’t bring herself to eat anything at all.

She sighs. She pushes away the instinct to say she’s fine. “I’m… not.”

“Yeah. I get that.”

She leans into his side and watches the room full of people mingling like zombies, letting Mark’s presence comfort her. Sam walks up and presses into Joan’s other side, and it’s almost enough to keep her afloat. They lean against each other in silence for a long moment before Mark speaks again.

“So. Owen Archibald Thompson, huh? That was his real name?” He elbows Joan’s side lightly and she steps back to look at him in confusion.

“What?”

“His initials spell oat. When were you gonna tell me that?” His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes but Joan knows an attempt to cheer her up when she sees it. She matches with an equally tired and distant smile.

“Yes, well, you never would have let that go if I had, would you?”

“Oh, come on, Joanie, think of all the missed heckling opportunities!”

The mood sobers up again as quickly as it lightened at the mention of missed opportunities.

She drives to his apartment with his parents after everything is said and done. She’s been helping them clear all of his stuff out ever since they had arrived in Boston a few days ago; they’re getting on in their years and she had been pretty sure some of her stuff was still sitting around in there anyway. It’s a slow process. Every photo, every article of clothing, every paper, every dish and book and trinket, all filled with memories and all pored over for a few long seconds before being put into boxes. It’s emotional. It’s difficult. His parents cry more than once, and Joan tries her best to hold it together for their sake.

“Oh, look, remember when our Owen wore this to his aunt’s wedding years ago?”, “Oh, he’s had this stuffed bear ever since he was just a tiny thing, I’m glad to see he kept it,” “Oh, Joan, look at this photo he kept of the two of you,” and then choking up as the memories of those times would return, on and on like that through the years and years of his life all collected in one place.

His bedroom is the place that hits hardest. It sits exactly as it did the moment he got up for work on That Day. The bed is still made, his pajamas folded neatly on one corner; there’s a mystery novel on the corner of his nightstand with a bookmark stuck about two-thirds of the way in, one he’ll never get to finish; they’d had to turn off his alarm clock when they walked in because it had been ringing to wake up a man who’d never wake up again.

Joan starts on the nightstand first. She pulls the drawer out fully and sets it gently on the floor, gingerly sitting down next to it; she could sit on the bed, but disturbing the sheets feels almost criminal. She begins sifting through everything. It’s mostly unremarkable; old papers, some prescription bottles, old phones he hadn’t used in years, supplies for testosterone injections, CVS receipts with coupons that expired long ago. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing unexpected.

Except for one thing.

Tucked behind a bottle of expired aspirin, an outdated passport, and a pair of old glasses, is a small box. Dark blue, square, covered in some matte fabric. A ring box.

“Oh.” The word comes out soft and tentative. She can’t think of anything else to say.

“He’d been planning to ask you,” a voice heavy with memories pipes up behind her and she turns to see Owen’s father in the doorway, smiling with this sad fondness that clouds his eyes. “He was so excited, too. But then, well, he said something had happened between you two. Didn’t go into specifics, but he never seemed like he blamed you for it.”

He sits down next to her on the floor, wincing as his joints pop a bit on his way down. She looks away, doesn’t meet his eyes, just stares at the box in her hands. She slowly, shakily opens it, looks at the ring inside. It’s simple, a white band inlaid with small diamonds and emeralds, but the way that it shines in the mid-afternoon light streaming in through his bedroom window is gorgeous and she can’t stop herself from moving it back and forth to watch it glitter.

Owen’s father chuckles. “He really loved you, you know. Never stopped. He would still talk about you even after you broke up.”

_ I love you, Joan. _

“I know.”

_ And I need you to be happy. _

The dam breaks. She’d managed to keep it together for most of the day, by some miracle, but the memory hits her like a train and she collapses into the arm that Owen’s father holds out to her, burying her face in his shoulder.

\----

She tells Mark about the ring when she gets home.

It’s a mix of things-- she wants to tell  _ someone,  _ she doesn’t want him to accidentally find it and start asking questions, she doesn’t see any reason to hide it-- that leads to the decision. His expression is unreadable as she shows him the ring.

“Well, I mean, he got a nice one. ...Oh god.”

“What?”

“He was almost my brother-in-law.”

The look of exaggerated disgust that washes over Mark’s face is enough to make her crack a smile, a real, genuine smile, for the first time in the last two weeks, and Mark cracks one of his own when he sees it, the half-faked disgust melting off.


End file.
